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Science

March 04, 2008

TED had one last minute addition to the speakers list. A young fellow by the name of Johnny Lee. Lee is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University brilliant young technologist, who on his own, without any funding figured out that there is more power in a WiiRemote than simply helping your backhand in a video game. Lee presented two ideas he developed using the WiiRemote. The first allows a user with a computer, LCD projector, remote and white-board to turn their regular cheap white-board into a digital capture white board. He also showed how it can be set up to do heard tracking. Both of these ideas are explained in the video clips below.

What is significant is two fold. First he has definitely developed some cool interactive technology. But more importantly is the fact that his idea has spread far and wide through the power of YouTube. A total of 3.9 million people (more viewers than many network television shows) have downloaded the video on head tracking. Another 1.2 million have downloaded the white board video. If any marketer has ever doubted the power of a viral message, this should eliminate any doubt.

What I love about the age of the web, is that an old adage has become a truth. Build a great product and the world will beat a path to your door. Just ask Johnny.

February 28, 2008

A few years ago, TED launched the TED prize. Three talented individuals are selected each year to receive the prize which consists of $100,000 in cash PLUS (and this is the really valuable part) one wish. The concept is that the TED community will rally around the wish and help make it come true.

This year's three winners are

The first winner is David Eggers. He saw a need to He developed a program to get writers to help tutor kids in troubled school areas. The tutoring center behind a Pirate Supply store in California, and a SuperHero supply store in Brooklyn and a Space Travel Supply Company in Seattle, and a Spy Supply store in Chicago. The brilliance of this project is that they create a wonderful environment where kids want to go, and once they get in there, they get one-on-one attention to help them with their writing. Dave's wish is to get 1000 creative individuals working with students in different ways. The web site onceuponaschool.org will document different ways that you can get involved.

The second winner is Neil Turok, a theoretical physics professor from Cambridge who has put forward the concept of the Endless Universe. Neil is originally from Africa. He started an organization to help educate students in Africa and to help them get the high level of education they need there, aqs opposed to going abroad. The organization he developed is called the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). His wish is to create a network of AIM"s centers across Africa designed to help achieve his educational objective. His dream is that the next Einstien will come from Africa.

The third winner is Karen Armstrong. She is one of the foremost students of world religions and traditions. Her wish is based on a beautiful premise. According to her, the underpinning of all three of the Abrahamic religions is The Golden Rule. As such, she wants to establish an organization with a charter of compassion that will bring together leaders of the Christian, Judaic and Muslim faiths to work together to build on the concepts of universal justice and respect that is core to all three religions.

I heard about a great website here at TED. If you want to look at data spread across the world, check outWorldmapper. This site spreads nearly 400 data elements across global maps but represents the data by changing the size of the countries on the map. The example here shows ownership of personal computers.

The last presentation of the session was incredibly moving. Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain researcher who suffered a stroke. She started the talk with perhaps the best audience attention-getter I have ever seen. She brought a human brain with her, and showed the audience the different parts in graphic detail.

Her story however was about the details she gathered as she experienced the stroke. She was able to make sense of what was happening to her, as her functions shut down, and looked at the experience from her perspective as a researcher. Her understanding was profound and beautiful. She shared that as a researcher she understood what was happening to the left hand side of her brain (what she called the serial processor) , and how her right brain (parallel processor)was taking over, and she was able to see “the we inside of me.” She described the state as Nirvana-like, as all of the components of her brain that create stress (recollection of the past, anticipation of the future) shut off.

Her point was that we can choose the consciousness of the two hemisphere’s, and that if we take the time to spend more time in the peace of our right brain, that perhaps there will be more peace. Her presentation was one of the most moving I have ever seen.

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Books I'm reading

Brian Selznick: The Invention of Hugo CabretThis is an absolutely gorgeous, stunning, book. The illustrations are some of the best I have ever seen in any book, and the author marries the story with the images in a very creative and unusual way. This was a TED book club selection. (*****)